Good morning 👋
And happy Friday - what a week.
The Thiel Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards a young person can receive. We’re not big believers in credentialism, but we have an exception for Thiel fellows.
Here’s are the latest crop of Thiel fellows and what they’re building …
TOP
2025 Thiel Fellows
Ferdinand Dabitz: Berlin, Germany (@FerdiDabitz)
Ivy is building the world trade bank — a global instant payments platform.
Jackson Denka: Los Angeles, CA (@jacksondenka)
Azura is a trading platform that utilizes on-chain rails to enable price discovery for everything from crypto and equities to beliefs and memes.
Juan Ebrath: Bogota, Colombia (@RealJPGE)
Phase is a research lab on a mission to unlock whole-body regeneration and make living matter programmable — from healing hearts to regrowing limbs.
Colton El-Habr: Philadelphia, PA
Orbit builds non-invasive neurostimulators that utilize the brain’s existing infrastructure to modulate the body’s autonomic nervous system — an API to the human mind.
Elias Fizesan: Luxembourg (@Eliasfiz)
Canopy Labs is building the foundation models to power digital humans that are indistinguishable from real ones.
Fabian Gruber: Erlangen, Germany
Manex AI is developing an AI-powered solution to automate manufacturing processes for dark factories.
Carlo Kobe: Hamburg, Germany (@CarloWKobe)
Fizz is developing an AI financial advisor for the pocket of every young adult.
Jennifer Lin: Miami, FL (@Jlindig0)
Jennifer’s startup is giving patients with rare diseases accelerated access to new cures with clear indications of efficacy.
Koki Mashita: Tokyo, Japan (@koki_mashita)
Aeolus is building the planetary defense system for extreme weather.
Soren Monroe-Anderson: Anchorage, AK (@soren_ma)
Neros is a defense technology company building drones critical to a modern arsenal at massive scale.
Steven Pang: Hong Kong (@thewildstevenp)
Orbit builds non-invasive neurostimulators that utilize the brain’s existing infrastructure to modulate the body’s autonomic nervous system — an API to the human mind.
Hooman Reza Nezhad: Waterloo, Canada (@hoomanrenezhad)
Solcoa Industries is producing the first zero-carbon, American-made rare earth metals at scale.
Aidan Smith: Mountain View, CA (@aidanmantine)
Innerphases is developing human-native communication devices that change the way we work and think.
Teddy Warner: Charlotte, NC (@WarnerTeddy)
Intempus is equipping robots with emotional intelligence, making them more predictable and easier to understand.
Sigil Wen: Toronto, Canada (@0xSigil)
Extraordinary brings the world’s top talent to America’s technology companies.
UPGRADE
"This is like getting an analyst for 1/100 of the price ..."
That’s how one reader described his experience when he upgraded his experience with this newsletter.
Where else can you get all of this without hiring at least a part-time person?
Investment memos on companies backed by Sequoia, Accel, Founders Fund, and others ✅
Market maps on up-and-coming verticals (with company data) ✅
Behind-the-scenes looks at how we build and scale this business ✅
Database of 2,000+ venture capital firms ✅
Ultimate VC resource library (400+ curated resources used by the top funds in the world) ✅
Community builder playbook (everything we have learned from running a community-first business) ✅
$50k+ in software discounts (from vendors like beehiiv, Airtable, Loom, Harmonic, and others) ✅
If all of that sounds interesting, see why others are upgrading their experience by checking out our different plans below …
TWEET
LINKS
💯 The Seed 100: The best early-stage investors of 2025
🥵 Marc Andreessen Explains Why Venture Capital is an “extreme feast or famine business”: Andreessen delivers the stats
🧩 How AI-Generated Search is Changing SEO in 2025—and What You Can Do About It: The VC Corner walks through how to build content that understands intent, delivers substance and earns trust—both from human readers and AI systems
🍀 How to be more lucky: Marketing Ideas shares how luck is a skill you can develop by understanding the environment/rules and then taking action to position yourself
𝍔 Your Life is Driven by Network Effects: NfX outlines how network effects impact nearly every aspect of our lives and how that perspective helps to make the 7 most important decisions of your life
🫶🏼 The Case for Small Funds: Lots of data that show staying small is the best option for most
ICYMI
shots on goal > concentration: Math on why picking shouldn't be your moat, six types of seed investors, a 10-year look at Series B trends, and some bad data for tall founders
missing the point on secondary narratives: Getting in vs. getting out of positions, pre or post-fall and the idea of hitting bottom, plus Redpoint and Work-Bench raise massive new funds
the case for small funds: Why LPs are more aligned with small funds, how traditional buying journeys are being disrupted with AI, the state of venture today
SPONSOR
📶 Grow with this newsletter …
It’s never been easier to start a company, but it’s never been harder to grow one.
We don’t think that trend is changing anytime soon.
We’ve spent 5+ years and loads of our own capital to grow our audience, and we selectively work with other companies who:
We can help
We believe in their product / service
We think our audience should talk to
Here’s more on some of the packages we offer to companies …
Package | What it gets | Price |
|---|---|---|
Starter Bundle (6 primary placements) | For each placement: a shoutout right at the top of the email that can include a small banner, 4 sentences, and a CTA button. | |
Quarterly Partnership (12 primary placements + 1 dedicated email send) | More primary placements, custom content (advertorials, etc) to create higher conversions, one dedicated email to targeted members of our audience, custom reporting | |
Flagship Annual Partnership (40 primary placements + 2 dedicated email sends + 1 tear down) | More primary placements, higher trust and repeat exposure, more custom content and tear downs for higher conversion, custom reporting, monthly strategy meetings with our team |
Here’s our full suite of sponsorship packages with more audience data and a list of previous sponsors …
Thanks for reading this far and giving us a little bit of your attention this week.
Feel free to unsubscribe whenever this stops becoming valuable to you.
- Clay
(Founder @ Confluence.VC | GP @ Outlaw)


